Avengers Academy introduced 5 new characters to the Marvel Universe that the Avengers decided to provide guidance too. The origins aren’t fully known but are these new characters mutants and what does it mean that they debuted at a time when there were no new mutants?

In Avengers Academy #29, Wiz Kid assembled the mutant students to talk about what they felt about and were going to do about the treatment of the Utopia X-Men kids. Hazard is there, but she says she isn’t a mutant. X-23 is there, but she’s not a mutant. She’s a clone.

But why aren’t the Avengers Academy kids (minus Reptil who got his powers from a magical amulet) considered mutants? We’ve seen some back story and have seen/heard when they first manifested their powers and that just screams mutant. During puberty? Check. Great stress? Check

Hazmat’s first manifestation sounds extremely close to Rogues. She’s in her room with a boy and goes to kiss him, powers manifest and the boy is hurt. Hazmat might get a pass because she said her parents worked for Roxxon and thought she had been exposed to a chemical as a child.

But the others appear to have been born with their abilities. So why aren’t they mutants? If they aren’t mutants, then what are they?

By the rules of the Marvel Universe, they should be mutants.

Why weren’t Wiz Kid and Ricochet in Utopia when the island was formed? They are both mutants. All the mutants went to San Francisco and the kids had classes on Utopia. Why weren’t Wiz Kid and Ricochet invited?

Only mutants that appeared in the X-Men books got invited?

What defines a mutant? Wasn’t it always being born with the genetic differences that would manifest as powers? That’s what it sounds like with the Avengers Academy students. Veil manifested her powers as an awkward teenager in a moment of great stress. Mettle was revealed to have metal skin when he had a surfing accident and a chunk of flesh was ripped away. Finesse seems to have inherited the same abilities as her presumed father, Taskmaster, which would technically not make her a mutant since one of the rules (which may have been overturned) was that children with identical powers weren’t considered mutants. And Striker manifested his during a moment of great stress when someone tried to molest him.

The idea behind Hope was that she was the first new mutant since the Scarlet Witch’s “no more mutants” proclamation. Since Hope returned to the present there have been the five “lights”, new mutants manifesting their powers during puberty and moments of great stress. Sound familiar?

Are the Avengers Academy kids mutants? If so they didn’t lose their abilities during M-Day and it means that the possiblity of there being others like them out there exists. So what makes Hope Summers so special then?